


It’s Where My Demons Hide

by addy_is_not_a_laddy



Series: The Fault In Our Strilondes (Starlightverse) [1]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Multi, Piercings, Substance Abuse, WIP, tbc, technically underage papping
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-18
Updated: 2015-09-17
Packaged: 2018-01-13 00:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1205872
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addy_is_not_a_laddy/pseuds/addy_is_not_a_laddy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rahksy's been the Condesce's moirail since sweeps before beginning of the empire, since before there was a Condesce.  She was there through the empire's rise and she'll be there through the fall.  Events are coming together, trolls are pupating that will change their world, and in the middle Rahksy pretends her biggest wishes are more complicated and selfless than filling the void in her chest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. When The Days Are Cold

The lights of your respiteblock click on and an alarm buzzes you awake.  You groan and huff, stretching even as you consider just staying in your recuperacoon for a little while longer. The tone of the alarm is slightly different than you remember, though, and you should probably check to see if there’s some major program error it’s trying to alert you to.  You climb out of your 'cupe clumsily and stumble into the ablution trap to rinse sopor out of your hair. It always tries to get stuck in the curls, but you make sure to rinse it out before staggering, sopping wet, to the fridge.  There's a couple bottles of watered-sopor that you made yesterday and you sit to drink.  You get halfway through bottle number two when you decide to take a look at the time.  When you see that it’s still midday you make an irritated noise and go to find whatever the alarm is mad about. Especially because it's getting more persistent and annoying to listen to and you hate having a headache first thing at night. Or day. You really don’t want to be awake.

You say the startup code and your husktop starts to boot while you dry yourself off, put on your work-clothes, and dry your hair as best as you can. Trying to comb around your annoyingly situated horns is always a challenge. When it finally boots up properly the first thing that pops up is the reason that your alarm is buzzing, and you turn it off with a quick click, but... That's something you wrote sweeps and sweeps ago, and when you realize why it must have gone off you jump to your feet and close your husktop hard.  You automatically grab another bottle of sopor-water before you set off down the hall, ignoring the fact that you aren’t wearing shoes.

As you walk you hope that it's just a false hit, and that you coded something wrong.  There are programs you have written that you hope never get activated, and this is one of them.  You bring up your psychic shields a bit more heavily than you have in a while so that people ignore you in your state of disarray, trying not to panic.  The sopor takes the edge off of any of your stronger emotions, but it's only your third bottle and watered-down isn’t as strong so you know it’s not doing as good of a job as it could.

You go to take a swig from the bottle in your hand just as yet another alarm starts blaring, but this time it’s a ship alarm.  It’s right on top of you so you know you only have a few moments to get far enough away from this alarm.  The bottle drops from your hand and you lean forward into a sprint. At least, you try to start running. Instead you nearly lose your grip on the husktop when you are scrabbling to make sure it doesn't fall you slip on the spilled sopor-water and right onto your ass. The hold doors at each end of the hall slide silently shut as if to mock your incompetency.  You sit resignedly in the puddle, thinking that this is probably one of the worst starts to an evening that you have had in a long time.  It was the hull breach alarm, and probably just a micrometeorite, but you aren't sure how bad it is and you hope that they’ll let you out soon so that you can get back to important business.  You try not to think about whether or not you’ll be able to get to that business.

You encrypted this particular program so that it couldn't be accessed by a husktop or palmhusk, but that particular security measure is backfiring on you right now.  The sopor-water was already cold and it only feels colder as it soaks into your skirt.  You consider getting up and trying to dry it off, but there’s no point.  You’re either stuck here until you kick it or until they let you out and you don’t exactly have a change of clothes on you.  There are other trolls in the hall that look confused, and a few even look alarmed, and you watch them with half your mind.  You could laugh.  Either it’ll be fixed, or you'll all die. At least that's what usually happens.  You're glad that Yatria isn't here. She's probably asleep like every other troll on your night-cycle.  Classes don't start for another three or four hours, probably.  You’re looking forward to graduation when you can finally ask her out, because she's just your type.  She's hardworking, not too formal, and not condescending, despite your single-name of Markchik.  You suppress a grin, you can't wait to tap that.  It probably won't last that long, but you will take what you can get and she hardly seems unwilling.

Your job as a ballistics terrortrainer has been going on for twenty-three sweeps on this particular ship, but you like it and you’re glad to spend some time on a ship that isn't completely insane.  This vessel is more for research and recon than some others you’ve been on, and it sends information back to battleships so they can conquer inhabited and useful planets to harvest for resources. The Searcherprise is a good ship for training new recruits so that they can move on to battleships with high survival rates.  It turns out that if you train them first they’re better and more effective leaders from the very beginning.  Of course, it’s also a pretty exclusive sort of training, reserved for trolls that will live long enough to make the extra training worth it.  You’ve probably only trained around twenty-five trolls that were below purple on the spectrum, and every last one of them was quadranted to a seadweller.

The other trolls slowly resign themselves to waiting around like you and sit on the deck or lean against the hull, talking to each other in hushed voices.  You leave your psychic wall up, you don't have anything that you would want to say to them if they noticed you anyway.  After an hour of staring at strangers you finally pull out your husktop and try to break through your own security, making a mental note that not leaving a backdoor can be great for preventing others from breaching your handiwork, but it makes things damn hard for you.  You quickly give up; you designed that security system and you know exactly how hard it is to break into.

You sigh and turn to working on upgrading the design matrix used for making almost everything in the empire.  It started out as a way for wigglers to easily design hives, and after about a hundred sweeps of upgrades, it’s evolved into the start and the end of where trolls go when they need something designed.  There are ways to make designs more original, but very few trolls generally bother, considering the motivation and time that it takes to properly master the program.  You made the program intelligent, so it can judge the aptitude of the troll using it and increase the complexity and customization options based on whoever is using it.  Every ship, hive, table, toilet, and pair of pants is made in your program, and has been for a decently long time.  Perhaps a few other trolls on this ship remember a time before Designitect, but you wouldn't bet caegars.

You are saving some new features onto the net when you finally start to notice how sluggish you’re feeling.  It's like you’re in the middle of your sixth bottle of straight-up sopor instead of two and half into the watered stuff.  You’re used to working while impaired, so that's probably why it took you so long to notice, but maybe it's also because it's been so gradual.  You glance at the other trolls around you and they seem to be similarly impaired, though not alarmed about it.  You giggle, because everyone seems to finally be calmer than they have been since the hall sealed.  It becomes a sort of insane giggle because you want to panic, despite the overwhelming feeling of well-being that is coursing through you.  You've never had hypoxia before but you wonder if this is what drowning feels like. Probably not, it's too slow.

Your vision starts to darken around the edges, and you watch as the first of the other group of trolls start to pass out. One or two gets up to pound on the hull, but the sound is muffled, like you have something stuffed in your ears.  You lay down, closing your husktop as everything grows more and more quiet.  You smile a bit as you see more and more trolls passing out.  Maybe a few of them are already dead, but you can't be sure.  The headache you are getting isn't funny, but you’ve had worse ones, so you can still concentrate enough to hear and feel the silence that envelops the hall.  You have been the most relaxed the whole time because of the sopor that you drank first thing, but it's not much of a comfort to be the last one fading to black in a silent, brightly lit hall.

It's like falling asleep, at least that's what you tell yourself.  Everyone around you just got tired and nodded off.  You can't think. It's getting colder. It's cold. You're falling. Falling.

–

All at once you are awake, alive, alert, and more sober than you have been in a century. For the first little bit you are fine, feel fine.  But, slowly you realize the air you are breathing is too thin, far too thin.  It becomes uncomfortable, like holding your breath, and then the pain and panic starts to build. You feel desperation seeping into your bones as you stagger to your feet to see if anyone else is awake. Instead,you only see trolls lying entirely too still on the ground, and your panic mounts as the blackness starts to eat at your vision even faster.  Your pulse races until you feel it stop, the blackness having consumed you again. When it comes this time you enter it crying.

–

The next time, the sopor water you spilled on the ground has begun to freeze, and the stuff that soaked into your skirt too.  Breathing does nothing, it's just more suffocation and pain that waits for you. There is no air to be had.

–

The fourth time the darkness comes for you is worse than the third, and the fifth worse than the fourth.  It's only once you accept that you’re waking up only to die, that only the empty airless brightly lit hell of the hall awaits you, that you start lasting longer.  It takes less air to accept hell coming for you.

–

You have lost count of the times you descended into and come back from that cold darkness. You lay silent and sober for a full few minutes before you realize that you can breathe; it's getting warmer.  You also start to notice noises as a troll's feet move into your line of vision and approach you, and you slam down your psychic barriers as hard as you can. They stop suddenly before moving back towards the other prone figures lying still on the ground.  You stand unsteadily, your frozen skirt sticking to your legs but mostly to the floor.  You leave it there, it doesn't matter anyway.  With your barriers up you might as well be invisible.

By the time you get back to your hive you have blocked whatever it is that just happened into a corner of your mind to examine later.  Or never.  You have class to teach ten minutes ago, and you change hastily and get to your class just before they start leaving.  Without explaining you go on with the scheduled lesson until the shipwide intercom beeps loudly.  Three short beeps, a long one, and two more short beeps.  Your blood turns to ice and your stomach falls through your feet. “Would Imperial Arkitect please report to debriefingblock three. Repeat, would Imperial Arkitect please report to debriefingblock three.” It ends with two short beeps.  You are frozen in the wake of the announcement and you hear the trainees whispering among themselves.  That particular set of tones is one that has never been heard on this ship before, but you would recognize it anyway.

Robotically you set down the laser pistol that you were in the middle of introducing and the class goes silent, staring at you expectantly.  You clear your throat. “That's the tone of an urgent message, directly from the Imperial flagship.  It also means that this class is over; thank you for being attentive students, and have a good night.”  You leave them like that, and go straight back to your block.  You move robotically, already feeling dread well up inside you.  When you’ve gotten back to your block you put on an outfit you keep in the very back of your wardrobe.  You swore to yourself you wouldn’t wear it again, and looking at it is like a punch in the gut.  The color is high, dangerously close to tyrian but not quite there.  Maybe you wouldn't even be able to tell the difference, except for the imperial sigil embroidered onto the shoulder being a shade off.  The clothes fit like only a seadweller's can, but you haven't worn true seadweller clothing in longer than you want to remember.  You don’t belong in them.

You arrange your face into a disinterested mask and drop your mental shields.  There's not much point anyway, she already made the call for you.  The door of your block is swung open and you stride toward your destination ignoring the stares, surprise, and even terror of those in the hall with you.  Your body language is as haughty as you can manage, chin up and eyes half-closed in a disdainful sort of way.  You have to walk like you own the ship.  You're sad, disappointed in yourself, and you resolutely don’t think of the only reason why your shields could have failed.  It must have been a failure on your part somehow.  If you’d only- but no.  No time for that right now.  You pass more than one of your students, and they stare openly at you more than anyone else.  You think you see Yatria's face disappear around a corner at one point.  You have worn a fake sigil for as long as you have gone by Markchik, which is probably for the best because everyone recognizes this sign by now.

The hall that leads to debriefingblock three is both too long and far too short for your tastes, there are guards outside the doors that you banish to halfway down the hall. You want a little bit of peace and quiet if your moirail decides to yell at you.  The possibility isn't too remote considering you have been hiding from her for about fifty sweeps now.  You stride into the room with all your fake bravado, and then as soon as it is shut and locked you turn and wilt against it.  You don't even look at the screen that takes up half the room, and it's silent for a few minutes but you can hear her breathing and know she is looking at you.  It's a waiting game to see who will speak first, but she always has been the more impatient one of the two of you.

“Gill, you betta have a reel good explanation, because I can’t sink of one.”

Meenah's voice is rough with emotion.  She’s mad, you don’t have to look at her to hear that.  You hear her pain too, though, because you’ve hurt her so badly.  Just hearing her is so familiar and comforting. You can hear her disappointment, but mostly there's the same pity that has always been there, and you embrace that pity to fill the abyss you feel yawning in your chest. Each word is painful, but you were already crying from the second you started to hear her voice.  You turn to face her, shaking but still not outright sobbing.  Your breath is getting half-caught in your throat and your gills are fluttering with each aborted sob.  She's taken to wearing more jewelry than you remember, but shestill wears the compliment to your own outfit.  It's skintight, full tyrian with her symbol in black across her arms and down her legs.  Her hair has gotten longer, but it's still in braids. That small detail nearly sends you into hysterical giggles, because you remember the first sweeps you two were together and you had to shave her head because her hair had become a solid mass and beyond any help.  It’s still her, still the same Meenah.

You try to give her a small smile, wanting to reach up and touch the screen where her face is. Instead your silent shaking and tears break free as a hiccup springs from your mouth.  You have such a craving for straight sopor right now, but the feeling of hot guilt pooling in your chest simply from thinking of it in front of your moirail derails that train of thought.  She watches, her face softening as you melt in front of her. She doesn't say a word as you break.  It was easier to pretend that there was never anything when you make yourself forget, when you block things out of your mind to the point that they may as well never have happened.  Your stomach gurgles and your sobriety is like ice held on your skin ,forcing you to remember things you’d rather not.  Your tears sink into your sleeve, matching the color perfectly without leaving any sign of dampness.  It's like even your clothing is in denial.

When she sees that you finally are pulling yourself together she sighs.  “I hate to sea you so melan-coley Rahksy, but you know it's knot reely my fault.  I’m comin’ to get you, the Battleship Condescension is prawndevous-ing with the Searcherprise, and shoald beach there in twenty hours to make the transfer.” She runs her hand over her face slowly, a small self-pap you recognize from trolls who don’t have or are far from their moirails.  It spears you through the chest. “When I have you in our room you better get to explaining.” She snorts “Markchik. Reely?  You are such a doofish with your names.”

You give another little hiccup and a snort.  She nods and the screen goes black.  As soon as it blacks out you start scrubbing at your face with your sleeves to remove any stray tearstreaks.  It would probably give the whole ship (heck, it would give the whole empire) something to gossip about if they saw the Condesce's moirail leave from a meeting with her crying.  You shudder at the flashes of “Pap denial” and “seablood moirail gets chastised” appearing in your mind’s eye.

If the guards do notice your distress when you leave, they are tactful enough not to stare at you any more than they already were.  The guards approach you with deference in their posture. “Fleet Admiral Imperial Arkitect, your quarters have been moved on Her Imperious Condescension's orders. We will lead you to them.”  The tealblood speaks quietly, and judging by the fact that she is the lowest-blooded troll of your guards she was probably forced into this job.  They think you might cull them for the slightest offense, even though you can’t remember a time that would have been true.  You nod in response, deciding that your voice might not be steady enough to speak yet. As you weave your way through the familiar ship you catch sight of trolls at the edge of your vision, peeking around corners to catch sight of you.  It's about as annoying as you remember, but thankfully easy to ignore.  There haven't been any new rumors about you on the web lately, so you suppose this will get them going again, and honestly sometimes those rumors get really funny.  The prevalent rumor right now is that you’re a male kept as a kinky paleslave in HIC's respiteblock.  You’ve been out of the public eye for a while.  Your new quarters are easily five times the size of your old ones, and all your things are in nearly the same configuration, only spread out to match the size of the room.  You dismiss the guards, and head back to the class you so unceremoniously disappeared from to find that all your students are waiting at attention.  Well, nearly all of them, Yatria is simply standing relaxed and ignoring the disapproving looks of her classmates.  It’s just another reason to like her, she really doesn't give a damn what you or anyone else thinks of her, though the way she’s eying you appraisingly right now probably has to do more with your newly discovered status than anything else.

“For the last few sweeps,” you begin as though you have not worked here for more than twenty, “I have been personally gathering information for the good of the empire.  I have decided that my time here is at an end and will be personally promoting or culling those that have earned such honors, but none in this room have earned the honor of culling at the end of my rifle. Instead I commend you for your diligence in your studies and know that you will learn just as well with the terrortrainer sent to replace me.”

Your proclamation is met with silence and you nod before turning to leave the room.  Yatria makes a noise that you barely hear, like she wants to say something but she can't, and you turn around to see a hand over her mouth. The boy next to her is probably her moirail, judging by the way he still has his fingers.  You motion for Yatria to speak, and the boy removes his hand unabashed.

“You're just going to go like that, then?” she says, her voice full of almost-hurt and expectation.  

The other trolls are looking incredulously at her, certain that there will be a dead seadweller on the deck momentarily.  You turn and walk towards her purposefully while she stares you down.  She's taller than you by a bit, but you reach up and pull her down into a kiss that she readily accepts.  Her moirail is next to her wearing an expression somewhere between a grin and a grimace, and you pull away from her, only to grab her hand and drag her along with you.  Her moirail follows without a word and you try (and succeed) in not thinking too hard about what you just did.  You need a distraction.  Your new quarters beckon you, and her moirail waits outside silently when you pull Yatria in with you.

Between rounds you manage to ask her to be your matesprit, and between rounds she says yes, of course.  When you two are finally exhausted she goes to the door and her moirail comes in to help her clean up.  You don't watch too closely but it makes you miss your moirail all the more hearing the sounds of gentle cleansing and whispered assurances.  You begin packing the few things you own that aren't junk or completely replaceable.  They might be replaced as soon as you get to the Battleship Condescension anyway.

Eventually you step into the leisureblock and clear your throat.  The two trolls are lounging on a couch and they bring their hands back to themselves at the noise.  Yatria looks at you and smiles, gesturing at her moirail. “Kurloz doesn't have any other quadrants right now and I'm fine with leaving my idiot kismesis here.” she says with a laugh.  You smile wryly.

“You should probably get your stuff packed, if you’re bringing anything else, then.  There's enough time to get some sleep before the Battleship Condescension rendezvous with us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aggie was the wonderful person who helped BETA this original chapter. An edit is now posted that has been proofread by the amazing KarrinBlue and myself instead. I will post about it with the next chapter.
> 
> My tumblr is addynotladdy.tumblr.com if you all are interested. I post about the chapters on there within a few minutes of their official ao3 posting so that I can link them. I only post about them once so as not to clutter dashboards. I also sometimes post oneshots and other relevant information to the stories (such as the titles of and number of planned sequels/concurrent stories) so have a look!


	2. And The Cards All Fold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Trying to stay unnoticed is probably the most noticeable thing you can do.

You get up at some unholy hour of day so early that only the most charitable of trolls would call it evening. You’ve had little sleep and you have less patience, but you have to get to the ship’s central computationblock. The Battleship Condescension is going to dock with the Searcherprise in a few hours and you plan on figuring this out well before then. You've drunk a bottle of sopor-water as fast as you can without choking and wiped your face before crossing the entire length of your new temporary respiteblock. Eventually you get the presence of mind to shower and put on clothes, not even caring that you've tracked wet sopor all over the room. It's not like you'll be in the room come that night, so you won't have to clean it, and your lack of patience means that while you were covered in sopor you gathered your now-unneeded possessions into a pile in the middle of the room and then captchalogued them as a whole. They don't need to be nicely stored to throw them in the incinercycler. You are one of a handful of trolls using the captchalogging system, since you invented it, and you are very lazy with it.

Once you're nicely clean and the only signs that the room might have belonged to someone are the 'cupe bolted to the wall and the sopor tracked throughout the room, you pull on your seadweller clothes. Where yesterday you didn't have the calm to really feel them, you can feel them clinging and tight now. You can feel the confidence in the lines of the fabric. The stretch across your hips and shoulders seems to say “I can beat you while you can see every vulnerable place on me. I am so far above you that it doesn't matter that I am not wearing a weapon.” The color across your whole body is blinding, it’s suffocating, but it doesn't matter.

You slip into your mask, as you slip into the clothing. The seams pull you tall and the lack of shoes feels decadent. You have to be the epitome of highblood arrogance, you have found. Somehow being exactly what everyone expects of you makes you both highly visible and completely unremarkable at the same time. You tell yourself you had forgotten what it was like to have to look a part you were playing, but as you set out walking across the ship your calves begin aching and you know that you’re only out of practice. You haven't had to take up the smooth gliding walk of a highblood in sweeps and sweeps.  Being the soporholic but competent terrortrainer meant nobody expected you to be quite as refined as a ‘proper’ seadweller, so it didn’t matter how you walked or talked. Before you were wearing a mask of a troll carefully competent enough not to be culled or at least beaten, but incompetent enough to never have been raised higher than you were. Now you are the second-highest ranking troll in the universe, and you have to play the part.  You’re not sure why, but you have the bone-deep conviction of it.  You can barely remember the last time you weren't wearing a mask of one thing or another, behind layers and layers of psychic barriers.

Trolls in the hall stare at your sigil, and press themselves to the walls with terror in their eyes. Your body language says you can and will cull any troll stupid enough to be in your way, and their fear does all the work for you.  The internet rumors may have gotten a little bit out of control.  There will be rumors on the net in scant minutes of how you culled a swath of belligerent trolls daring to block your path, but you haven't culled a troll for more than three hundred sweeps. You arrive to the central computationblock annoyed, and clear your throat to the silent room of trolls engrossed in their computers. When they look up, the mid-high greens and blues in the room make their excuses and leave through the other door. The trolls lower than that just jump up and run without speaking. You're left with a single purple that you recognize sitting on the computer ignoring you after the initial glance.

“Makara.” You nod at him.

“Lalond” He nods back. You take a computer on the other side of the room from him that would be hard to see from his position, and get to work. You have to run fingerprints into the system, and even shed a few drops of blood before you can get through your own firewalls. It still takes another set of passwords and undoing various blocks and traps before you can reach the information you need, but finally you have the names of the trolls that indirectly caused all your trouble. One name, you already knew would show up. Jaenne Croker is nearly as old as Meenah and yourself. The other is a jade-blood named Jaehke who, for some reason, didn't join the Imperial Fleet until the ripe old age of two-hundred sweeps, but at a glance he doesn't look a day over twenty sweeps. Exactly like Jaenne, you, and Meenah. You consider having him culled to avoid any issues, but noticing who his moirail is stops that train of thought before it can get on track. Jaenne can't have shared her nanites with his, their color is too different and anyway her nanites would kill any other troll that got them into their bloodstream.

You sigh and change his age in the official record and make a note to talk to them both personally. Your note-program whirrs to life and you get a notice a few moments later that the Battleship Condescension is going to meet up with Jaenne and Jaehke's ship, and the semi-plausible reason listed below. You could order any ship in the fleet to do anything, including drive into the nearest sun, and they would have no choice but to obey unless you were overridden by the Condesce herself. She probably wouldn't, though, especially if she thought it was funny. The Battleship Condescension doesn't have any important destinations for the next few perigees anyway, so you just sign it. It's not going to cause any problems for anyone that could cause problems for you.

You back out of the program slowly, resealing it and erasing any signs of its existence to the average coding troll. You've just finished when loud thuds and vibrations resonate through the ship. Your stomach gamely tries to crawl out of your mouth, but you swallow and keep your jaw tightly shut. You and Kurloz stand at the same time, and he walks a few steps behind you to Yatria's quarters. Your teeth are clenched and trolls in your path seem to throw themselves out of it even faster than before. Kurloz slips in, and you wait. Moments later both he and his moirail slip out holding small bags and each other's hands. You nod at them and avert your eyes, your own hands conspicuously empty.

Each step you take towards the docking bay is slow. Your heart is beating faster and faster in dread, and you finally admit to yourself that you're afraid of what Meenah might do to you once you get back to her. You've never run off like this before, and you've never left for more than a sweep.  You can’t even guess how she’ll react. Yatria and her moirail trail behind you silently as the ship's occupants watch you go by. When you get to the docking bay there’s a whole platoon of large purplebloods waiting to receive you.

You have to quash a laugh, because despite their massive size, massive hair, and highly visible assortment of weapons, they look terrified to be near you. The one closest to you looks like she might pass out and she's about three times your size. You probably shouldn't have fueled the internet rumors that you drank blood by the liter, but you had been both drunk and on sopor.  It had seemed like a funny idea a the time, and it only worked because nobody in the fleet really has inside information about you besides your moirail and Jaehne. You are an enigma wrapped in mystery as far as most of the empire is concerned.

The trolls at the front of the group only glance at you and your sigil for a few moment before they turn the brunt of their muscled intimidation to the two trolls trailing behind you and still holding hands. You glare at the guards when they move to block the two, and they jerk back into position as though they had never thought of moving. When you make eye contact and gesture at the Commandaunt she comes running.

“These two are my matesprit and her moirail. Treat them accordingly. Both have completed their courses up to advanced level with honors.and they’ll be ready to join as proper leaders after a few private lessons.” Your words sound stilted and awkward to your ears, but they’re formal and exactly what the Commandaunt seems to have been expecting to hear. She bows deeply to you, making sure to bare the back of her neck, before straightening and gathering the two trolls up. You nod at Yatria's questioning look, and she smiles before leaving.

You take a few steps before a troll that's shaking and sweating steps up, stammering that she is there to lead you to Her Imperial Condescension's quarters. You wave the nervous troll off, and she stops short. You snort. “I designed this ship personally. I think I can find her quarters fine, get back to work.”

The troll trips, and then gets up quickly and leaves you alone to your thoughts. You do pretend to get lost for a while despite yourself, because you are putting off talking to her as much as possible. You deserve whatever reaming you're going to get, but you aren't eager to get it. Turn after turn you walk before you find you’ve wandered directly to her quarters, even while trying to avoid them. There is a guard directly outside who is bigger and more intimidating than the ones that welcomed you onto the ship, but you aren't surprised. This guard might even be at least a little bit friends with Meenah, to be willing to put up with the shit that Meenah probably puts her through.

When you approach she stares you down, and you smile. You hold out your hand before she can ask for it, and she quickly cuts a part of your finger and watches the blood well up. She compares it to the approved color on her huskpad before stepping back and inclining her head. “Her Imperial Condescension is waiting for you, Fleet Admiral Imperial Arkitect.”  Now that she knows your face and horns she won’t bother you again, but she’s a different guard from the last so she has to make sure.

You snort and roll your eyes at the formal names, but step forward and put your hand on the door scanner anyway. A trio of beeps signals your entry as you step into the spacious quarters. You don't see her anywhere in the main entry room, but she has to be in here or her guard wouldn't be at her door.

You wander for a few minutes before you come to a door. You can see fish through the clear plastic of the doors, but Meenah's clothes are in a pile next to it, so you pause for a moment.  Your indecision can’t last, and you strip both your clothing and masks slowly, hoping she’s in a better mood than she probably is.  You shuffle into the waterlock, letting the door shut silently and fill the chamber with water. You can hear a distinctive hiss as the air is drained back into the dry-land portion of her room, and you hold your breath until the water goes over your head.

You breathe out slowly and then let your gills take over. You can feel yourself calming as you begin circulating water, your gills fluttering to life at your neck and on your ribs. The door leading to the rest of the quarters opens slowly and you paddle forward, letting your webbed feet and hands take you farther and faster than ever were out of water. The water is cool and calming, and it even has a slight tang of life. There is seaweed and coral spread around, and even some fish. You stifle a glubbing laugh; of course she would keep snacks close at hand.

Your hair billows at the slightest provocation and you relax in the water, letting your gills get some use. You feel like a little wriggler again, imagining your catfishmom wrapped around you in your little alcove on one of the rare times when you weren't starving. You curl into a ball, floating aimlessly and quietly until you hear a slight whispering of bubbles. You quickly flip yourself towards the noise, and there she is. Meenah floats there in her studded bangles and baubles, pointed earrings and rings in every fin and even one that goes straight through her left horn, and you can see some new horn carvings near the base of the right. She's as skinny and long as ever, in contrast to you, and you paddle toward her uncertainly. Once you get into arm's reach she raises her jeweled hand and you flinch.  

It lands softly to caress your cheek.   The look on her face is gentle, and tired.  If you had been standing that simple gesture would have made your knees crumple, but instead you go slack, submitting to your moirail in a way that you haven't since you were a few sweeps old.

–

Hungry. No food, catfishmom can't hunt any more.  Can't move any more, with the chunk missing from tailfin.  No choice but to leave, find food, but pain  Chest pain, swimming away from soon-to-be-food-for-big-predators catfishmom but not leaving is just as bad.  Past-time exploring there was others-like-you skittering across the sand so now you go to the not-water-place.

Leaving little-home-cove takes as long as it takes to get to the mouth of the cove and swim away.  Time goes by, hot-bright-pain-light dimming to kind-many-color-light when you approach the shallow water. Water is too shallow to swim, so awkward-paddling-on-sand and silt stirs to try to slip into gills.  Push against the water, up out, but heavy-too-heavy and no-water-can't-breathe struggle-forward-cant-stop.  Sand-without-water is calling, body-too-heavy but things urging struggle-forward-cant-stop and chest is spasming-noise-water-leaving-mouth and then too-light-too-little but still breathing in the not-water.  Solid-like-stone-but-not-stone-tall-round were near enough that struggle-forward-cant-stop led to it and then arms clutched and pulled.  Grip gone, fall-pain but clutch-and-pull again and again until nearly-perched-on-feet. Noise behind, you hear not-normal-more-high-too-clean and turn-but-fall-pain. More noise.

Then you feel like somebody has poured something into your brain, too-much-too-much in your brain, which you didn't even have words for scant seconds ago. Words.  Sure, you aren't quite sure how to use them but even as you think that more and more they begin to make sense.  You're trying to stand, to walk, that's the name for what it is.  Day and night, dying and dead, land and sea, and seadweller and so many things, like the tree you have been trying to desperately hold on to. And despite the fact that the troll in front of you is the first one that you have seen up close you have names for things about her. Her, first of all. Female, and troll, and the things on the side of her face are fins like yours.  She's wearing things too, suddenly and you are naked in front of her but there's no shame there because that's not something you have learned to be afraid of.

You sit on the sand still unsteady and your body still feels too heavy but the troll smiles a smile full of the same sharp teeth as your own. “Whale now gill, water you doin' so close to the empty bay?” She snorts at her own question.  “Loachs to me pike you're starvin'.” You stare in incomprehension, and decide to try and use words yourself.  Your voice isn't nearly as smooth as hers, having never been used before your mouth trips on the sounds.

“ah- I do not. not-t I do not undrrrr understand you.” you manage to trip out the words and the troll's face lights up with glee, and she takes your hand and starts to pull you.  You try to stand and end up with a faceful of sand for your effort.  She makes an impatient noise and throws you over her shoulder without much thought, striding confidently and you lie limply in her grip spitting out sand.  The gravity pulls you down uncomfortably and all your muscles seem to be protesting.

She stops suddenly and you slide off her shoulder into a heap on the ground.  You end up with your legs awkwardly pinned underneath you and lying on your back, and you pull them out from underneath you, staring wide-eyed at the group of trolls around you.

You give them a smile, all teeth and innocence, and don’t understand when all but one back away.  The one walks up to you and rolls her eyes, brushing sand off your legs and trying to help you stand.

The troll that found you giggles. “Fish outta water, she just learned how to speak and she can't even walk. She looks about as cold as me tho, and if we can get her good at walking I'll bet she's a good hunter. She looks like she came out of the south bay, so another of the starving brats but one with some good sense for a change.” The troll that is standing with you sighs.

“How are we gonna feed another troll?” she says pointedly. She lets go of your hands and you crumple. “She can't even walk, how will she be able to run from adults when we are karping crap from them?”

“She’s as cold as me, she’ll be strong when we get her fed up.  Don’t worry, beach.”

You understand some of what they are saying but there isn't much that you can do. You listen quietly from your prone position on the ground, and eventually the discussion turns to include you.

“Yo, gill, what's your name?”

You blink at them and tilt your head, thinking. Names don't have much use in the sea when you don't have to talk, but words spring to your mouth unbidden. “Roxy Lalonde” you say, and they repeat it with odd emphasis. In the coming months when you learn to read and write you learn that names are never anything but six letters each, so while you want to spell it with four and seven you resign yourself to the six and six and pretend it doesn’t feel important that it’s different.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aggie is the BETA the original, and KarrinBlue the wonderful person who helped with the edits.
> 
> Thank you all for reading, check out my tumblr addynotladdy if you're interested in this or want to read more of my work.


	3. And the Saints We See Are All Made of Gold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> While she holds a ceremonial 2x3dent that could undoubtedly cull anyone she wanted, your show weapon is much more practical. Laser rifles tend to be.  
> \--  
> It was like burning a field so that in a sweep the grass could grow again strong.

It’s a little while before you come down from your papping high, and you let yourself float for as long as you can.  Moments like this are the sort of perfection that you wish you had all the time, but you can only steal them in bits and pieces.  Your drifting mind floats back towards reality eventually with a delicately painted and jeweled hand on your neck.  It could be a caress, careless of the studded ring’s spikes, her claws against your throat ever-so-slightly.  It’s light enough it’s probably not a threat, but you know it is.  You pretend it isn’t.  With her you’re always pretending that all the too-sharp bits are an accident.  You pretend that the slice of her words and the sly bruising of her wit as she deals with others are just side-effects of her huge personality.  

She’s always been a loud person, taking charge and taking names.  Even when you both weren’t worth broken shells she still walked like she owned the beach.  Now, she actually does.  You built her palace on the burned-out shell of the city that started the fight, in the center of the worst of what Alternia once was.  It was a jewel, is a jewel.  You remember designing it yourself, by hand.  You took advantage of the early stages of your program back then but you know that palace inside and out, better even than probably the trolls who built it.  You remember watching as she started to change in little bits.  She’s always been a little different when she’s had power.  Her stride somehow more confident, her chin just that little bit higher.  Horns somehow something proud and strong, despite their dull points.  You remember jokingly choosing her adult name for her, and she took it with no little glee.  You shut out that memory, tuck it into the hole.  There’s always more room there.  Just for a moment, with her hands on your face and neck, your legs tangled together, you feel that familiar hope that maybe enough time together will be able to fill the void all the way to the top.  

She floats as limply as you, gills fluttering.  You admire the new piercings she has all up and down her top opercula.  You touch one with slow movements and she nudges your hand away with a little sigh.  “Those aren’t for moray-eels.  ”  You snort and flick one and she twitches with a disgruntled noise and flicks your fin.  The sting of her claw is familiar, a comfort.  She tilts her head to consider you, and smiles a mouth full of knives.  Her teeth are barely sharper than yours, but you never smile to show yours to the same effect.  Something about your teeth always unnerved you when it came to it, and maybe it’s the oldest memories you have of Meenah’s grin the first time you met her.  It reminds you of old fish in deep water that you only visited once and never returned to.  The deeper water had been somehow more devoid of life than the places you came from, except fish that were more likely to eat you in return.  

You’re sure that you’ll get some new piercings next chance you get.  It feels like the right time, though it never did before.  You’re distracted now, observing all the little changes.  When you saw her on the giant viewscreen you could only see all the things that stayed the same, but now you can only see the tiny changes.  You wonder how much of them are your fault, because you were gone.  You raise your hand to her face and gently rub away the crease that’s started to form between her brows, trying to not catalog the new tightness around her eyes and failing.  As you pull her closer her hands drift from your face and you set your chin on top of her head you get a great view of her horns, and you can see that the carvings she’s got in them are slightly different and even more intricate.  They look like one pattern from a distance, but you can see another up close.  You’re entirely sure that at least a few of those are indeed tiny bulges forming something larger and more dignified like an abstract swirl.  

Your horns are smooth as a newly pupated adult’s, but they had been headed that way, considering  how long it had been since the last time you had them properly carved.  The shitstorm that landed you back in this room smoothed away all your scars and made your horns like new.  You think that you’d probably better get them done soon, people are prone to gossip and basic upkeep in a troll of your… status… is expected to do exactly as they want, but they’re expected to want certain things.  Certain signs of their station.  You as moirail to the empress and barely a shade below her are no exception, and it’s easier just to do it than to fight.  Even if nobody would dare tell you how you should keep your horns.  

You let your arms cross behind her head and lay your hands on her back, where you can feel how tense she is, so you start a slow massage.  If your hands hurt from massaging her back and maybe you scratch her a few times with your claws it’s not as important as the fact that you’re with her now.  Not nearly as important as whatever reason you’ve made yourself forget that made you leave.  

\--

She’s an empress in front of the cameras.  Of course, she’s  always an empress, but her demeanor shifts when she knows that nearly a trillion trolls have their eyes on her, or will as soon as their fleet essential operation shifts are over.  Her smile is wide, and you recognize that it’s a little too wide.  She’s had her teeth sharpened for the occasion, and it seems to give her words an edge that makes her even more dangerous.  You stand behind her wreathed in shadows.  It sounds impressive but really it’s just some tricks with light and cameras that makes you such an imposing figure when you’re standing behind her throne.  You’ve seen the feeds before, you know you look like barely more than a silhouette.  The only thing that people will probably be able to see is your symbol, maybe a bit of your horns, and your wide, round curves contrasting her lean and sharp ones.  Your horns stayed low, while hers are only gaining height with the years.  Her edges are sharp, all elbows and knees.  Hips and cheekbones at angles that could cut glass.  Yet despite the contrast, you are the strength in the picture.  While she holds a ceremonial 2x3dent that could undoubtedly cull anyone she wanted, your show weapon is much more practical.  Laser rifles tend to be.  

Her strength lies in her words and in the fact that, while she looks slight, she could strangle a musclebeast with her bare hands or wrestle a giant squid.  Yours lies in the fact that your powers make you undetectable unless you want to be seen or noticed.  You can see a muscle in her back twitching, and in a mirror you can see her eyes looking back into yours and for just a moment you see her madness.  Then it’s gone and all you can see is sharp wit and cunning and the widest nastiest grin she uses only for show.  Except for how much it reminds you of how she greeted you last night.  

She’s long forgotten the things that keep you awake some nights.  Forgotten the streets, dodging zealots and cripples, getting in fights and finding followers for her own cause.  You recognize that look in her eye though, and it reminds you of things that you’ve made yourself forget.  You throw the thoughts into the void, thoughts of imagined madness and of the terrible idea that maybe it will happen to you too, if it hasn’t already started.  

The two of you together in a public missive once again will set rumors ablaze, since you’ve not been seen together for centuries.  You wonder how much longer you’ll stay this time until you throw that thought along with the others.  It hurts too much to do otherwise.  You start itching for the sopor again, and that’s one thought you let settle like a good friend with you.  

\--

Your name is Jaenne Croker and you’re cuddling with your moirail.  You haven’t been moirails that long, and admittedly you were sure at first for some reason that it was going to be a red fling.  You get moments like that, and then you’re here with him and his hand is on your face and you’re at peace and you wonder how you could have been so silly.  Nowadays you let the idea fade half-formed and flit from your mind.  It feels almost like nostalgia, that thought, but you’re not sure why.  You’ve barely been with Jaehke long enough to start forming any nostalgic memories, only a couple of sweeps.  You know that you were lucky to meet him though, and you are reminded every time you are like this together.  Something between asleep and awake, but not haunted by nightmares that you wake from shaking in terror with the flavor of candy on your tongue.  

He’s warm, though not much warmer than you, and you’re glad of it, though you know it probably won’t last.  You’ve had relationships before and they’ve come and gone.  You have such a sense of security though with him that you can’t help but wish that he would live as long as you.  He doesn’t look that old though so you might get at least a century with him.  You don’t ask his age though, and you’re somewhat afraid to.  He hasn’t asked you how old you are so it’s easy enough to pretend that moments like this are something you might be able to have forever.  You’ll deal with the pain of disappointment and loss later, it’s better than not being able to have comfort and this closeness now.  

It took you a while to convince Jaehke to come with you, but only because he knew you had time.  You’re sure you could have made him come sooner if you hadn’t had to spend as long in the brooding caverns as you did.  You remember the proud face of the high Mother Overseer, the jade in charge of the caverns.  You remember half-thinking one of her horns could have made an awfully good fishing hook before you stifled a dumb laugh and tried not to picture doing that exact thing with it.  It would probably have been a funny joke, and you know you could have gotten away with it, but it also felt a bit cruel.  You’re not much in the business of cruelty unless it gets the job done.  She was kind, and didn’t deserve bad treatment like that anyway.  You know she only oversaw the culling of the grubs that wouldn’t have been allowed to survive.  You know your heart and despite all you’ve seen and done you know that you could never do what she does.  You wonder if she knew she was never your Mother.  If she could sense the fact that had you hatched in the last millennia you wouldn’t have been standing where you were, nor would you have ever made it to your adult pupation.  Her eyes had seen through you, and you’re sure she did.  It felt humbling.  

Jaehke had been the antithesis of her graceful certainty.  The only thing you think that the two of them had in common was their kindness.  You took careful review and watched all the procedures carried out with a swift surety that, to your trained eye, told of long practice and implementation not just a show put on for your benefit.  You’re sure that they’ve kept to the standards, though in the past you’ve had to uncover rings that allowed for certain debilitating mutations to pass through only because they weren’t as easily visible.  You remember that that’s how the Mother Overseer’s predecessor died.  Was culled.  Some days you forget to use the right words, because you remember a time when they were different words and meant different things.  

Jaehke was the cog that clogged the works; you could tell that he wasn’t used to the procedures, but not for lack of trying.  He was just clumsy and unless it was the finest of movements he just was too much.  Too much life and energy and too much time in the dark lit by glowstones.  He was most in his element when he was with the Mother Grub though.  She spoke in words that you could barely here in a language you felt you should understand but didn’t.  You know she also spoke regular standard Alternian so you’re sure it was some dialect that you’ve never heard.  Normally being raised by regular schoolfeeding would take care of too much drift in language, but even you understand that the caverns are a different place.  Despite the changes you’ve seen in your lifetime there are some things that haven’t changed, and that you don’t really want to report because it would feel like too much to take this one small thing from a creature like the Mother Grub.  Her words with her children.  You know already that it’s nothing damning or plans of revolution.  Those are visible in the followers.  Those trolls had no such aspirations or you would have read them in small hesitations and nervousness around you.  

Jaeke was there so quietly, and you could see joy in both of them even as the mother grub continued her laying uninterrupted.  She loved him like a lusus, and when she saw you she knew what you wanted and she urged him to your side.  She wasn’t going to be a Mother Grub for much longer.  She was nearing her own limit in age, and you were the one that helped write the regulation that more than a certain percentage of birth defects in a group for several slurry cycles meant that the Mother Grub was replaced and culled once she had trained her successor.  It had been words at the time, meaningless and in text such a straightforward and logical idea.  Your heart had clenched and you had turned away from those thoughts to concentrate on wooing Jaehke.  

The first time you were alone together and he was close you realized that red was the furthest thing from your mind, and now you’re here and he’s here and you wonder if he would have been happier to stay.  If you would have been happier to stay.  But no, your heart is already sad enough when you visit and you schedule your random inspections as much for your own sanity as for accuracy of data.  You’re technically the head of Propagandistorianism for the empire but only a few trolls some shades higher than you know that.  When it suits you you take certain stories and cases on for yourself and this is one that you’ve had your heart in since the beginning.  Not least to prevent trolls like you, but also because you remember some of the trolls that had come out of the caverns in the old days, with too many or not enough limbs, and how few had made it to adulthood anyway and of those how many lay starving or begging on the streets if they were lucky.  

You don’t think about the unlucky ones.  Nobody did, and now nobody has to because that time is long past and you’re here with your moirail and you don’t have to be anybody else with him.  He accepts the gills on your ribcage without surprise and without horror.  You’ve finally convinced him that remaining on and becoming a full Propagandistorian is the best choice, but he had had his heart set on something like a Ruffiannihilator for a while.  He is fond of his guns.  You got him a 2x pistolkind for his last wriggling day and it’s the happiest you’ve seen him outside a pile or away from the Mother Grub.  

Of course, your musings are cut short by the door.  You gather yourself up and shoosh him back into the pile while you put on a shirt and answer.  You can’t say you’re not surprised; you’ve come to expect her visits.  She’s shown up on your doorstep before randomly, drunk you under the table with alcohol while she was already well into her sopor, and then left while you were passed out under the kitchen table.  This time, you can tell by the look on her face that it’s not a social visit and she’s anything but pleased about being there.  

She’s smiling, of course, but there’s something about the way she’s standing that puts you on edge.  For a brief moment you wonder if it’s finally time for you to be culled for knowing too much, and you’re not sure how well that would go considering how difficult you’ve found it is for you to die.  Or stay dead.  It’s complicated and most days you don’t like to think about it.  But then, she gives you a huge hug that you remember from your earliest days and you can feel her peering over your shoulder.  The idea that she might be there to cull you hardly fazed you, but you can tell she’s looking for something.  That something is probably Jaehke, and you tense so quickly she pulls back confused.  You need more time to prepare yourself if they’re going to take him.  You aren’t sure how you’ll ask but you’re sure no matter what it is they’ve come for that it could wait a perigee.  You’re ready to start begging up until the moment that Rahksy looks you in the eye and asks you if you’ve been messing with your nanites.  You look from her to the back room, wondering what this could do with him, and tell her that even if you could it would be suicide to do so.  When she glances to the back room you shake your head and your jaw tightens.  

“Not even for a quad, Rahksy.  You know how many I’ve gone through, and if I didn’t try to do it for Shalta you know I won’t with Jaehke.  ”

She relaxes slightly, but once you’ve let go she shrugs.  “Well regardless, fleet records are showing something weird going on.  How old did he say he is?”

You shrug.  “I never asked.  He was in the caverns his whole life until I met him.  ” You’re starting to think that maybe you should have asked.  She laughs.  

“And I’m sure that doesn’t have anything to do with not wanting him to ask how old you are.  Well, I’ve got to talk to him.  You’re welcome to come.  ” She doesn’t have to let you, quadrant or not.  She’s being kind too.  You hope you don’t have to witness another moirail dying so soon.  

She strides into your respiteblock with all the ease of someone who literally designed the ship it’s in.  None of your neighbors have accommodations like this, and it’s nice and familiar to you.  Whenever you need a new place she somehow hears about it and has somewhere perfect lined up within hours.  She’ll even show up shortly after you move in to throw you a housewarming party.  Mostly it involves getting so drunk you can’t remember half the night.  

She stops short in front of you as Jaehke’s limp form comes into view and you edge past her to get him somewhat presentable.  He sits up, blinking blearily and you hold your breath so you can resist the urge to pap him again, or say something too pale.  

When he sees Rahksy he blinks slowly, and then his brows furrow.  You hear them both almost in stereo.  “Roxy?” “Jake?”

And you squash down no small amount of disbelief because there’s no way that Jake knows who this troll is.  She’s as old as the empire itself, even if she doesn’t look it.  The thing is, the way he’s said her name sounds slightly wrong, and the way she said his reminds you of how you had wanted to say it when you first met him.  It brings back that strange nostalgia and you’re definitely edging on panicked confusion at this point, when Rahksy snaps out of whatever daze she’s in.  You haven’t seen that look in her eye in a very long time, and you start resigning yourself to losing a moirail.  She looks scared.  

“Who are you.  How old are you?” Her words are pleading, confused.  He snorts, and you think he must not see her eyes, must be blind to her color.  You were sure you would have to calm him before he would even talk to her properly, he’s never been that comfortable around anyone higher than you.  And yet, here he is and that makes you sure that he must not have noticed yet.  

“Jake English.  Jaehke Engles.  They tell me the second one is the right one but I like the first one better, daggumit.  ”  He gives a lopsided grin and you can see he’s repressing the urge to double pistol wink.  At least he has the sense not to pull his weapons, but you think that thought fondly because he hasn’t had that problem since a few perigees after you got him out of the caves.  “I think about 200 sweeps.  I was the last of the old mother grub’s get and old enough to talk by the time the new one was trained.  ”  You feel your heart stop for a moment as you stare at him.  That’s not possible.  For a Jade he doesn’t look a day over 25 sweeps, and you oversee the caves yourself every few sweeps.  You don’t recall ever seeing this troll.  But then you remember, you only came once near the beginning of the current mother grub’s time and you were satisfied enough that they were in line that you left it for a while.  You hadn’t realized it had been that long.  

Rahksy grimaces and Jaehke gets a good look at her teeth and then he suddenly seems to realize that he’s talking to a seadweller who looks above even violet.  You step in before he can put his foot in his mouth, introducing them smoothly.  “Propagandistorian in training Jaehke Engles, meet Imperial Arkitect Rahksy Lalonde.  Rahksy, this is my moirail Jaehke.  ”

She nods at you, and Jaehke looks like he swallowed a lemon.  You nod back at her before dragging your moirail away to another room to make sure he doesn’t hyperventilate.  Rahksy lets you go, and you’re grateful.  You don’t bother trying to escape, though you entertain the thought for a moment.  You don’t really know what’s going on though, and you have no idea how Jaehke is as old as he claims to be, but you also know that Rahksy wouldn’t be at your door asking unless she already knew the answer.  The real question then is why Jaehke doesn’t seem to think his age is remarkable.  He wasn’t even slightly worried about answering the question honestly.  You know how the virus works as well as Rahksy, and she helped Meenah re-engineer it in the first place.  He probably doesn’t even know it exists, but it’s impossible that he’s immune to it.  Nobody is immune to it unless they have the nanites.  And those aren’t transferable to any troll outside your exact color and hatchsign, which is so rare you know in your long life you’ve never met one.  You are sure they would never have made it out of the caverns.  

\--

The first time you met Rahksy was the same day that you met the Empress.  Even then you could see the royalty in her in the lines of her walk, and in the fierceness of her eyes.  Rahksy was the bleeding heart, determined to change things, and Meenah was the iron will and sharp teeth to get it done.  Together they had already been making waves for far longer than you lived, but you remember the day you met them because it was the day that the city burned.  It had been a vast squatting stinking city, with small points of light where the best cloisters and temples stood.  Beyond them were the grubs lucky enough to have lusii and homes, mixed right in with adults completely willing to cull a lusus and snatch a grub if the color was right or the kid looked like they’d fetch a price somewhere.  You were one of the lucky ones, at least when you were small.  Back then it wasn’t unheard of for gills to appear all the way down to teal and even the stray maroon.  You were raised by the Sisters of the Holy Life, and when you turned six and refused to take your vows they sent you away.  You knew it was coming but you had never really seen the world outside your walls and you didn’t understand the choice you were making.  

Within weeks you went from bright and healthy to skinny and dirty, and that’s when you smelled the smoke.  You took refuge in the one place that you hadn’t dared venture before, because it was one place that would probably get you killed.  

Just because sometimes people below purple got gills didn’t mean that the trolls down there were as tolerant.  It was easy enough to hide gills under a dirty shirt on land, but down there it was your bright blue fluttering opercula they saw long before they saw the grub-grey eyes.  What saved you was those two, marching through the city and promising change.  Promising hope.  Meenah had been terrifying with her grin and her 2x3dent, and Rahksy with her laser rifle swimming as she had been born to it.  Your hands may have been webbed and your gills worked, but you were still as staccato and ungraceful as a newly hatched grub in the water.  Meenah had seen you and motioned to Rahksy and whispered something in her ear.  She had glanced at you and then done a double take before gathering you up under her arm.  

At first you had been sure you were going to die, but then they started teaching you.  They started helping you.  

Even after the first perigee you would have done anything for them, anything they asked.  The day that you stood together over yet another burning city, you understood, and knew what good you were doing.  Like burning a field so that in a sweep the grass could grow again strong you razed cities.  You remember the look of sadness on her face when she asked if she could cut your fins, and you had taken her hand and told Rahksy that you really didn’t mind.  If it meant you could fit in better with the new order and the new day that they were bringing you would have cut off your feet.  You remember her moving slightly and the blurred shape of a hand before you blacked out.  When you awoke your fins had been lovingly and carefully cut off, leaving only ears.  Your webbed hands had been sliced and bandaged, no webbing remained there either.  Your feet were similarly changed, and you were in a bed.  You still smell the smoke of the fires from the bodies and the buildings of the ruined city, and you ached in your heart and in your body.  

 You could help change the minds of people in the cities before it was too late.  Before you had to burn them.  When you got a head start on the next few cities you learned better and better what you had to do, and by the time the world started whispering Meenah’s title into the dark and realizing that she wasn’t any normal conqueror and she wouldn’t stop and she hadn’t died, you managed to get the last cities to surrender peacefully and accept their new order.  

Blood still flowed on the streets like water, but at least most of them survived.  The churches still got the torch, but it felt like hope was growing from the ashes.  You helped keep the empire under control, often telling outright lies or just misleading, but you did your job.  Whatever it took to keep the empire stable, and to help trolls understand that the alternative was just too awful.  You think of the alternative sometimes when you’re having trouble.  You remember broken bodies in allies back during that starving time before you met Rahksy.  You think of the haunted eyes of wigglers barely younger than you outside whorehouses, black and pale and red and ashen, and you remember the trolls with too many eyes or not enough, or arms in the wrong places or so many many things and so much suffering and you are glad at least that it’s not like that anymore.  You can help it never be like that again.  

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody what's up? It's been a while and I've had a lot of things happen in the last year-ish but I'm back and I'm better than ever. I have the next chapter already written- wierd right? And I've got plans for the next several. I think that given enough time I may actually see this through to the end and manage to get to the sequel and the two planned side stories for this. For more about me and about this fic (if you ask the right questions) check out my tumblr, it's addynotladdy. I think that I posted a little about these stories before but now that I'm back into actually writing I will def check them over to see if they're still relevant. If they're not I'll put a little edit note in them I guess.  
> Many innumerable thanks to KarrinBlue and quietserval who helped beta this monster. Karrin was tireless no matter that I just kept handing her more fic to deal with. Serval was an amazing cheerleader who helped bring up my confidence that this is a story worth telling. I hope you guys have a great day. : )


	4. When Your Dreams All Fail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rahksy gets some new holes punched in her, and meets another disturbingly familiar troll.

You watch with a some amusement and a lot of weariness as Jaehne has to take her moirail out to get him calmed down.  His candidness and the weird way that he pronounced your name despite not being introduced give you a little bit to think about.  You are always just that little bit sad when things like this happen, because it reminds you of the old days when trolls were judged on their actions and not their blood color.  Of course, you also know that there were so many more factors and it was all more complicated, but the farther away from those dark times you get the more you tend to idealize what happened.  You can tell you’re doing it and you want to stop, but at the same time it’s easier just to pretend.  

Some days you can smell the burnt meat and chitin and remember the city aflame, but you hate those days and how they make you scoff at the trolls that complain about their small troubles.  It’s not their fault that their lives are so different, so much less full of pain.  This is the new world, the new Alternia that you and Meenah dreamed about, and if it’s not quite done yet then all the more reason to keep moving forward.  

Jaehke looks just as young and vigorous in person as he did in the fleetnet picture, so you aren’t sure what’s going on with him.  He has to have been exposed to the virus, everybody has been.  He interacted casually with everyone, so he wasn’t in some sort of quarantine or anything that could have prevented him from getting it, and anyway it was in every single mother grub before they started laying so there was no way.  You know it, though clearly he doesn’t.  Right now you need a blood sample.  You’re going to have to make a new program to design it, beyond the one that tests for bloodborne diseases.  It’ll take you a few perigees, but it’s better to get a sample now so you can start looking for the differences as soon as possible.

Jaehne comes back in with a flushed and embarrassed Jaehke.  He tries to stammer out a formal greeting and you wave him off, and at the same time wave off the odd air of familiarity he has.  It’s probably just wishful thinking, because he’s Jaehne’s moirail and you’re glad to see her so happy for the first time in a long time.  “All I need is a blood sample.”

You pull out a small healthgrub and prick his wrist.  The color comes out a little darker than you expected, but unmistakably Jade.  You stow the healthgrub to deal with later and turn to Jaehne. “I think that you’ll  both want to transfer to the BC before I take off.”  You flash her an apologetic grin and she shrugs with a little smile.  She’s probably glad it’s not something worse, because even though you’ve mostly only ever been her friend, she’s had quadrants you’ve had to put down before.  The last girl had been a lime.  It was awful for everyone involved.  She waves at you as you go out the door and you head determinedly back to the BC to take care of some things.  You make sure that a pin or two with your symbol get left in Jaehne’s normal quarters.  Normally when she’s over she’ll pretend to be in one of your quadrants, as much for her protection as your peace of mind.  If your symbol doesn’t stop any troublemakers than the color certainly will.  A lot of trolls can’t tell the hair of a difference between your shade and Meenah’s and they’ll defer even if the symbol is wrong.

You think that Yatria’s moirail would be getting similar protection if he was lower on the spectrum, but as it is he’s high enough that he’s mostly protected.  He’s big besides so you’re not too worried about him. Yatria herself is a seadweller, so she doesn’t really need your pin for safety, but she  wears it as a small boast.  You wish that she had more time to be able to spend with you, but what with finishing the last of her training and then learning an entire new job she’s  busy all night and sleeps solid all day, or spends what little free time she has with her moirail.  You can hardly begrudge her that, considering how much time you’ve spent with your own since you got back to the ship.  You don’t have much to do; now that you’re not teaching any more you have a lot of free time, and the new challenge is finding ways to fill it when your quadrants are busy.  Often it’s just scrolling chatrooms and retrolling cat pictures. And catfish. And anything that reminds you of cats.

You like cats.

You also like Meenah’s new piercings.  When you get to your room you drop off your husktop and the healthgrub and snag your palmhusk before you go over to Meenah’s.  You set your jaw and get ready, sure that she doesn’t have anything immediately pressing that she has to deal with.  You’re gonna get yourself a set of piercings, and you know she’ll want to come. It’s with that thought in mind that you stroll into Meenah’s quarters and find her in the dry portion of her rooms brushing out her braids.  She looks at you when you come in, and then goes back to brushing.  You recognize that frustration and the way her mouth opened for just a moment before she went back to brushing.  She’s too proud to ask, but you’re used to that by now and you are good at knowing what she needs.  You take her brush and help her get her hair fluffed out and tangle-free.  It stays mostly without tangles in the braids, but taking out the braids is an undertaking all its own and sometimes she needs to let her hair out.  It’s quite the mane she has, and the braids really hide how much hair she has.  Finally you have it all brushed out and you grin. Setting the brush aside you lean back and lean her against you and start running your fingers through her hair.  You can feel her relax against you and after a few minutes she starts purring.  

You gently move her hair to one side to wrap your arms around her and lay your head on her shoulder, sitting quietly.  Waiting her out.  She’s got to be the one to ask first, that’s the way you know she’s willing to go.

“Where we goin’, Rahks?” she says.  You can feel her voice through her body, and it’s like she’s talking straight into your brain.  You hum at her and she swats at you.  You pull back with a grin and a snort.

“Whaaale, I was conch-sidering getting some bling.” You’re laying it on thick, and you both know it.  It doesn’t matter, she can tell when you’re trying to butter her up.  You tap one of her earrings for emphasis.  She twists and there’s a fiercely happy smile on her face.  She pulls your face down and kisses you on the forehead before getting up.  You consider her for a moment, and she’s holding her hair ties and about to start the process of putting her hair back in braids.  

You laugh and grab them from her. “Let it be.  We can leave it since you’re not going swimming for a while. Whale.” She sticks out her tongue at your repeated pun but leaves them behind as you leave her room.  She leads you to the piercer, because this is one place you’ve never been on the ship.  It’s a bit late in the morning, but the piercer is awake anyway.  She’s clearly used to the empress coming calling at strange hours, because she doesn’t bat an eye when you walk in.  She’s quiet while the two of you discuss where you’re going to get your piercings.  The troll has an impressive assortment of piercings herself, but no fins.  That doesn’t stop her from having little black steel balls in neat little curves up the shells of her ears and even a few in her lips.  She’s an olive, and one of the lowest trolls you’ve seen on the ship that didn’t work in the galley.  You think that probably seadwellers would wear gold, but you like how her black piercings look.

Finally Meenah ends your debate. “You betta get one first and sea if you can handle it, bayb.  This shit’s cray even if I got my head full of holes.  You picked tha places that hurt tha worst.”

You sigh and point to the top of one of your fins, before climbing into the piercing chair.  Meenah grins and when you sit down she grabs a hold of your hand.  The piercer pointedly ignores it and you’re not sure if you’re glad or not, but when the needle goes through your eyes fly wide and you’re gripping Meenah’s hand for all you’re worth.  You feel like you’ve tensed all the muscles in your body, pressing yourself further into the chair in an effort to remain still. It’s worse than an electric shock, worse than fire.  You’re staring at nothing, but you can’t keep your eyes closed.  By the time you get control of your limbs for more than just holding them still you let out a breath that you didn’t realize you had been holding.  Once the piercer has her hands off of you you cough and turn to Meenah disbelievingly.  

She makes a little kissy face at you. “Just imagine the opercula, bayb.  Straight through chitin and cartilage.”  You blink at her and your eyes narrow.  You recognize her tone.  She’s gonna play this game and you’re gonna accept.  You turn to the piercer who is waiting patiently, and you can feel the new weight and the air stinging your fin.  

“I’ll get another two in this fin, one right below and one at the bottom.”  Then you turn to her.  “And one in my opercula on each side.”  You are starting to feel giddy and your limbs feel loose. You suspect this could be the real reason she got them done, it feels an awful lot like what you feel like after a marathon papping session.  Guilt rises like gorge, because she got most of her piercings at times when you weren’t there.  Times she didn’t even remember you existed because of how thoroughly you were blocking.  It’s a sort of atonement then, the pain.  She just laughs at you and her claws are poking at your wrist the next time around.

The ones in the bottoms of your ears barely hurt at all, but you’re not sure if that’s just in comparison.

All told though, the opercula are the worst.  When the piercer starts to pull out the restraints your eyes get wide and you turn to look at Meenah.  She gives a wry smile and waves off the piercer and most of the restraints, opting to hold you down herself.  in the end only your legs are strapped down.  You can feel yourself sweating, you can tell your pupils are blown wide and you’re not in much of a fit state for anything.  As she touches you to hold you down you can feel the pain dulling even more and you’re grateful. Up until the point the needle goes through your opercula and you white out.  You’re reasonably sure your scream reaches some supersonic levels, and you’re glad she was there because you’re not sure that the restraints could have held you down.  

You’re lightheaded and your knees are jelly when you’re done, but you insist to Meenah and she relents, letting you stagger drunkenly to the horn-carver.  Actually, you’d probably be more coordinated if you were drunk.  She helps you along, and your path is clear as trolls part like water the instant that Meenah comes into view.  You laugh, remembering days where no matter what you did all you could manage was pushing and shoving your way through crowds that didn’t give a shit if they stepped right on you.  The manic giggles jiggle your piercings and send pain shooting through all your fresh piercings, though it lessens as each minute passes.  Your staggering steps end up hurting worse than the laughing.  You’re glad that you didn’t bleed much, and even that blood stopped quickly.  You know that you could never have done something like this if Meenah hadn’t come to help it along.  It’ll probably only take to the end of the day for your ears to heal, but the little golden rings on your opercula will take a few days.  For a normal troll they’d take maybe a whole sweep because of the chitin and cartilage, but you’ve got your moirail to help you out.

You catch Meenah admiring the little golden rings in your fins out of the corner of your eye and decide that it was worth it.  Maybe the void feels a little smaller too, blissed out as you are, and you’re sure that you managed to atone, at least a little bit, for leaving her the way that you did.

When you get to the horn carver’s it takes a little while before you settle on an outline.  It’ll take several nights’ worth of hours to get them as detailed as Meenah’s, and you’ve chosen a theme similar to hers, although you don’t think you’re going to get literal bulges carved into your horns.  You know you’re only going to get the simplest parts of it done for now, and as you sit Meenah settles down and starts working on your claws.  You think you probably fall asleep, because next thing you know Meenah is gathering you up and you both head back to her room.  

You know there will be a whole new set of rumors, but you actually doubt that they’ll be that popular.  The rumors that are dull and simple like this aren’t nearly as interesting as the scary larger-than-life ones.  

When you both settle into the sopor that night her hand is on your face and you are glad for the sopor, helping you heal even faster.  Any guilt you might feel about leaving her you drop it into the hole, and let sleep and exhaustion claim you.  You feel so safe, you’ve missed this.

\--

It doesn’t last, but the moments are endless while you have them.  The time you’re away from her though all your old doubts and fears, and especially your guilt come knocking again.  She gets busy directing the current terraforming projects for a few ships in the system.  You are working on your analysis program, but your results aren’t promising and you have no idea what to do with them.  Mostly because they tell you that Jaehke does in fact have the virus in his system, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything.  There’s not a trace of nanites though either.  

You come to end of your line of questioning when you forcefully shove it yet again back into that void in your chest.  It’s a yawning void now, not content to remain quiet when it’s been aching.  Of course, you know the perfect treatment for it, but you also don’t like to be on sopor around Meenah.  It feels like an accusation, that Meenah isn’t a good enough moirail to stop you from resorting to it.

She’s never said anything, but you were only around her once when you were on it.  You won’t forget the look she gave you anytime soon and you don’t plan on doing sopor near her ever again.  She didn’t even have to say anything.

It didn’t stop you from drinking it of course, but you limited yourself to when she wasn’t around or you knew that she would be gone for a while.  She’s going to be occupied in meeting for the next several night because one of the terraforming ships in orbit around the planet that they were preparing had gone down.  They were probably going to skin either whoever had designed the ship, or the poor sap who was piloting, if she wasn’t already dead.  You suspect that it was a combination of the two, and you want to see exactly what the designer did to fuck up badly enough that an entire propulsion strut could be torn off by low orbital gravity.  At very least it means you’re going to have to update the protocols in Designitect.  They’ll probably come to you at some point to pinpoint that particular problem, but not until the whole thing has been beaten to death.

You remember the small taste of the sopor that you get every time you wake in the morning, and how it buzzes on your tongue.  This is one thing perhaps that you missed in the time you spent hiding from yourself and your problems.  The sopor is purer on the BC than anything you had on the Searcherprise, and it’s twice strained on top of that.  It goes down as smooth as anything when you start chugging the fresh bottle that you got a hold of, and you try not to think too hard about it.  It’s easy once it starts taking effect.  It doesn’t fill the void, not exactly.  What it does do is cover it, like a bandage.  When you’re on sopor it’s much easier to not feel it, to ignore it when you do, and you don’t think so hard.  All the niggling little thoughts that make you sad and angry and frustrated and…

All of that is quieter.  Maybe it’s still there, but it’s not important.  It’s been a while since you had sopor this straight, and you’re glad that you left yourself a whole day to recover because it’s starting to knock you on your ass.  By tomorrow you’ll be sober enough that only another soporholic could recognize the symptoms of your high.  Of course that’s when Jaehne decides to pay you a visit, and she gets treated to you blitzed af on a pile of guns in your quarters.  You’re glad she came to get drunk.

\--

You get smash drunk and after Jaehne leaves you decide that you want to see home.  Of course, high as hell and drunker than piss you want to see Alternia.  You stumble into your Markchik outfit if only because some part of you recognizes going as yourself would start some probably bad rumors as well as making people watch you more closely.  You just want to go see home.  Meenah won’t be back for a little while so you jump to another ship and spend thirty minutes trying to figure out how to type in the orders with your override code so that you can get the ship headed to Alternia.

You’re sure that it causes a lot of confusion and irritation, but since the override and orders come from your hatchsign and color nobody’s going to question it, and since you showed up incognito nobody knows that you’re even on the ship.  The sopor provides a nice barrier to the guilt from your use of  this ship with no regard to the people on it or whatever they were doing, and by the time you get there you’ve had a full night’s sleep and all that’s waiting for you is a hangover and regret that you’re throwing into the hole like dumping water from a sinking ship.

When you set foot on land you give orders for the ship to stay put for a day; that way other people on the ship can get off and maybe enjoy themselves a little bit.  If you just had them standby then they couldn’t leave because they would have to be ready at a moment’s notice.

You can see the monument of a palace in the distance. If you want to visit that particular beach you’ll have to hop a transport, but for now you are content to wander the city.  It’s been too long since you set foot on Alternia and you aren’t sure what you expected to feel.  Real gravity feels more solid than the stuff you have on your ships, and there’s no unpredictable spots of lightness that you’ve dealt with for the last however-many sweeps.  Instead what you get is a view of Alternia as it has become.  You see a lot more warmbloods than you ever see on ships, but that hardly surprises you.  There are a lot of them, and their lower socialstatus means that they don’t often have the opportunity to secure a place on one of the few ships that accepts new trolls at any given time.

You’ve looked at the projected changes, and you know that the fleet is going to start expanding a lot more in the next thirty sweeps.  You’ve even been talking with Meenah about whether you should establish mother grubs on the terraformed worlds, depending on how well and how soon the terraforming goes through, considering how well everything is doing.  Minus the crashed ship previously in orbit.

You flash your codes in the town systems and have a hotel and a vehicle for yourself in short order.  You remember this city from Before, but driving through it feels different.  You can only see what it was in the barest sense.  The bones of the city are the same, but everything that covers them has changed.  You have the weirdest sense of deja-vu though when you find a cat-themed cafe called “The Rumbling Meowbeast” and some kind of cat lusus in bright neon white.

When you sit down at a table you feel like you recognize the inside a lot less. You and Meenah planned some of your early coups in a cafe like this one that one of your seadwellers had owned.  You are the highest person in the cafe, even considering your disguise, but that hardly surprises you.  Most of the trolls above tealish tend to stick to different parts of town.  You probably look like you’re slumming it, but you’re just happy to watch the cats sleeping and wandering in the cafe.  Once you’ve got a steaming cup of the house specialty you relax into your seat.  You start to get the feeling you’re being watched, but you’re not worried about it.  At least, not until half an hour passes and the feeling persists.  You look around casually as a cat winds its way around your ankles, and you can’t spot anyone paying special attention to you.  Then you see him.

You freeze for a moment, and there’s the same sense of confused fondness you had for Jaehke the first time you met him.  The same sense of easy nostalgia that isn’t accompanied by any memories or any reason why this troll should mean anything to you at all.  There’s another name that comes to your lips too, and you figure what the hell.

“Dirk?” It’s not even a proper name, but he’s already looking at you and he takes off his sunglasses to look you in the eyes, and waves. He looks tired.  He looks young.  His eyes aren’t even properly filled in yet, at odds with the horns that he’s sporting, which look like they belong on a troll ten times his age.  

Something burns in your chest and you stand up, nearly stepping on the cat trying to get your attention.  He stays seated as you rush out the door in a panic.  This panic won’t go down easy though, and you have a headache from your hangover that only builds with your panic.  You have no idea why this troll should panic you so badly either, because you already know that, even if he had some obscurely powerful power, it wouldn’t have any effect on you.  It takes conscious effort on your part to be able to allow even Meenah’s to work on you.  The reason you can do it so simply now is because you have been with her for thousands of sweeps and practice makes it effortless now.

You drive.  You drive and drive and it’s getting dangerously close to day by the time that you get to the beach.  You climb out of your transport and shuck off your clothes.  Once you got past the palace guards you knew you’d be left alone.  They’ve seen you in Markchik clothes before, and they don’t bother asking.  You have the right blood color, tested just like you were when you came back to Meenah, and you have the right codes.  Together those two things can get you anywhere in the empire, including onto the empress’s private beach.  Your beach.

You wade out, keeping your gills carefully shut until you’re clear of the sand and you’re sure that none of it is going to find its way into uncomfortable places. Infected gill filaments would be a stupid way to return to Meenah, and it would hurt like hell besides.

The beach doesn’t have any answers for you, and you can feel far too much.  You can’t find the hole you normally dump all your extra feelings into, and so you’re left shaking and sobbing alone underwater next to the beach that you learned to walk and talk on.  There’s fish now.  They came back a few sweeps after the city was razed, and they’re the most unfamiliar thing about this place.  If you ever came back starving would be the last thing you would have to worry about.  

You don’t even entertain the thought of staying.  All you can think of is the things that  you have lost.  Catfishmom.  Your freedom.

Normally you don’t let yourself think of it like that, but all your feelings are piling on you at once since you can’t put them where they belong.  You can’t escape.  You can never escape her.  You hated her once, you both had to have a middle leaf.  Maybe past you understood how dangerous she was better than current you.  Dangerous because you love her, dangerous because you can’t help but to love her.  One thing you never found in her arms in all these many many centuries is peace, but you stayed anyway.  You stayed because you love her and because you need her, and because nobody else made you feel the same way.

You feel so guilty for leaving her.  When she was leaving to go situate things with the terraforming, you remember her making a passing comment that you pretended was a joke; she threatened to cull the trolls in charge that led to that ship disintegrating in an inland sea on an ice planet.  It wasn’t a joke, and she talks like that more and more lately. It’s faster and easier to cull the problems than it is to take care of them.  Less work, and the next ones are afraid to make the same mistakes.  You should have been there, she wouldn’t have fallen this far.

But you left for a reason too.  You try and tell yourself that she was acting like this before you left, that this and more, so much more, is the reason you ran away to try and live.  You can’t, though.  This empire is as much your responsibility as hers and you can’t leave her again.  You can’t leave her because she’s not the only one you’re protecting, and you can’t leave her because you love her too much to do that again.  Your headache pounds in time with your heart and your sobs.  By the time you get back to land you’re wrung out and dripping wet.  You get dressed and drive back to the city and sleep in your hotel after leaving a hold order and another day’s stay on-planet.

He’s there when you are going to get on the ship, waiting for you.  Of course, maybe one of his quadrants is there and he’s wishing them goodbye.  Unlikely, considering his age, but not impossible.  Maybe he’s there to see the ships that he might someday work on.  You already know that’s not true though.  You know that he’s there for you, and you decide fuck it.  Maybe it’s stupid, maybe it’s suicidal.  You find that you don’t particularly care.  When you board the ship again he’s right behind you, and you grab the husktop of the worried guard tiredly.  You put in your override code and input his info, registering him for the fleet despite being too young.  You let him put in his name and identifying information, and according to the blood verification he put in and his hatchsign, he’s seven and a half sweeps.  His full name is Dirrhk Strider.  Not technically old enough to join.  The guard is making angry noises so you bring up your info really quick and  flash it at the guard who goes pale and starts stammering. You feel your headache just worsen, and you click out of everything you’ve got open and hand it back to him before going aboard.

\--

Alarms start blaring when you know you’re getting close to the Battleship Condescension and you immediately start hunting for reasons on your husktop.  When you get into the ship’s ‘net you find that there’s been another slew of micrometeorites.  This time they hit the BC and until it’s been repaired you can’t board.  Meenah is fine, having not been on the ship, and you leave her a message to let her know that you’re fine, in case she is afraid you were in a compromised area.

By the time you get aboard you’re still letting Dirrhk follow you, and despite the fact that there is no way he’s been on a ship before he isn’t the least bit curious about the ship.  You’re walking back to your rooms still in your Markchik clothes when Kurloz nearly runs straight into you.  Far from the quiet background troll that you remember seeing the few times you nearly interacted with him, he looks frantically desperate.  Your stomach lurches, and you beckon him to follow.  You reach your room a minute later and open the door to let Dirk inside.  He enters without a word and goes to sit on your pile, and you tell him you’ll be back.

When you turn to Kurloz he’s nodded and leads the way, talking a mile a minute as he goes. He hasn’t been able to find Yatria since the micrometeorite hit, and when you hear that you know.  You already know.  By the time you get to the sealed bulkhead you’ve started closing off.  Your hole still seems to not be working, but you’re keeping your face still because if you don’t then you might cry.  You aren’t even that worried about Yatria.  You barely knew her and you didn’t have much time to see her outside of the classes you used to teach.  You’re remembering the deaths.  The cold choking darkness where there was no air and no time and you learned to accept that suffering doesn’t have an end when you’re in the middle of it.  The event that captured your nightmares ever since then, that you tucked tighter into the void than much anything else.

There’s other trolls here outside this emergency airlock, and you recognize the other desperate, frantic, and worried trolls as quadrants to the likely victims.  You don’t belong here.  You didn’t really care for Yatria.   When the door opens she’s right there.  You feel your heart start to beat faster, terror screaming under your skin.  She was probably banging on the airlock doors just like those trolls you remembered.  Everything is so familiar and so final, and so goddamn arbitrary.  You nearly start crying, and the sound of grief and rage that you hear out of Kurloz’s and a few other mouths are heartbreaking enough that you start backing away.  You liked her well enough, but this grief is for trolls much closer to the dead than you are.  You are running back to your rooms and hoping against hope that you have enough time between now and when Meenah gets back to get old fashioned smash drunk again, and fuck your hangover.

Dirrhk’s waiting patiently, and when he sees you he moves over and you are on the pile and in his arms, and you aren’t even thinking.  After you let yourself cry a while you start to fall asleep and you can hardly believe it because it almost- it almost feels like there’s no gaping void in your chest.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BETAed by the wonderful and patient KarrinBlue. I'm reluctant to make promises about updates considering my track record, but I'm optimistic. Wish me luck guys, for updates and extra info check out my tumblr, addynotladdy.


	5. And the Worst of All Are the Ones We Hail

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is Entirely Too Much Papping.

When you wake up it’s slow.  You don’t feel any hurry, don’t hear any alarms, and you feel really comfortable.  You feel emptied out, cleaned.  It’s unnerving, once you notice it.  You’re so used to that panic, fear, and frustration always being there right under the surface, only restrained by your void.  You can still feel the void, it’s the same as ever, but somehow quiet.  Not demanding, not hurting, not aching, and you feel like you can really breathe for the first time that you can remember.  You feel rested, like you’ve had the best sleep of your life, but eventually your sleepy mind wakes up enough to realize some inconsistencies.

You can’t remember crawling into your ‘cupe last night, and you don’t feel even a little bit hungover.  You vividly remember planning to get smashed after- you try to cut off that train of thought, flinching and ready to shove pain into the void.  But, somehow, thinking of Yatria’s death doesn’t hurt in the least.  It’s sad, but it mostly makes you sad because you aren’t upset that she’s gone, and she probably deserved a better matesprit than you were shaping up to be in the short time you’d been with her.  All your relationships feel short compared to how many sweeps you have behind you, and how many you’ve probably got left to you.  You think of how long you’ve been with Meenah, how that relationship has been as interminable as your life itself, and you can see it stretching into the forever that waits for you.

It’s around this time that you remember Dirk.  Dirrhk?  You come up out of the sopor with a start, splashing and spluttering to get your head above the rim of the ‘cupe. You freeze halfway out of it, spotting him sitting in the same place that he was last night, in nearly the same relaxed, comfortable position.  Last night, when you came back a wreck, determined to give yourself alcohol poisoning but unwilling to risk a sopor overdose this close to Meenah’s return, he had saved you.  It was serendipity, and that was the most ridiculous thing to think, but there’s the idea in your head.  It isn’t even an accusing thing, it’s too comfortable an idea.

He’s watching, still not wearing shades, and you can see his eyes still filling with color, though mostly orange.  You feel nausea bubble up unbidden as you consider exactly what you’ve done… or at least, what you let happen  You let yourself be papped and put to ‘cupe by a wiggler.  Nearly an adult, but not yet.  You start making choking noises when you consider exactly how far out of the ‘allowable age difference’ clause you are, and you’re considering putting yourself in prison when suddenly he’s in front of you, hands on your face, shooshing you.  

You startle, barely holding on from falling back into the sopor.  He looks so tired, and you don’t think that he’s slept yet.  It looks deeper, though. You look into his eyes and wonder if he’s mirroring you, because he looks so old if you ignore the flecks of grey in his eyes.  He’s holding your face fast as you drip down the side of the ‘cupe, and you can feel sopor starting to dry in your hair.

“Roxy, shoosh.”

When he says your name like that you relax even more into his touch, even if you couldn’t say exactly why.  He paps your cheek one more time, and then smooths fingers over your eyes carefully.  You see a smear of translucent almost-fuschia, and blink hard a few times to drive back any more tears.  You see him smirk, but there’s no malice.  You can feel yourself slipping back into a familiar soft haze, the same one you’d spent the last day in.  He takes a deep breath, looks into your eyes, and lays his forehead against yours for a few seconds, eyes closed. Then he pulls back, a patch of slimy green sopor still on his forehead, already moving toward the next thing.

He’s strong for his size, and he doesn’t struggle when he pulls you the rest of the way out of your ‘cupe.  Your knees barely support you, so he leads you slowly to your ablu- ablush- your bathroom.  He drags you in while he’s still fully dressed, but you’re too papped to do anything but let him.  You feel like the main character in the most contrived pale porn ever, and you don’t even care. The water is comfortable for you, but it must be absolutely freezing to him.  He concentrates on getting the sopor out of your hair, paying special attention to the curl.

You can’t remember the last time you were this far gone, even at your worst, when you were smashed on alcohol and sopor at the same time, you weren’t as completely three sheets to the wind as you are now.  If this kid told you right now that he was here to assassinate you, you’d thank him for the great day.  You can’t even bring yourself to care about his age at this point, he’s doing a better job than any other moirail you’ve had.  There’s something so familiar and comforting about him, about the way he moves, and the way he paps you like you’ve been palemates for centuries.  You’re a gooey pile of troll once he’s cleaned you up and put clothes on you, and lain you back out on your pile.  Your only guilt at this point is that you are in no fit state to make him feel just as great, but you’re too far gone, and anyway you were the one freaking out.  He clearly has everything completely under control.

Once he’s done with you, he vanishes in a blink, and you can see things moving almost of their own accord.  The sopor trail to the shower is gone one moment, and the next he’s standing back where he started, clothes changed, but still with the little patch of sopor on his forehead.  You’re starting to get better control of your limbs, and when he flops down next to you you reach over, and wipe it away.  He looks so tired you’re sure that he’s going to fall asleep soon.  You sit there quietly for a while and eventually you’re able to think straight again, and you start to panic despite yourself.  He’s got his hand on you in an instant, and then he starts explaining.  Sort of.

\--

Your name is Dirk Strider and you can’t remember how old you are… sort of. It’s a really long story; you should start from the beginning.

Your name is- No, it’s too long of a story.  You don’t have time to tell it right now..

Your name is Dirrkh Stridr and you’re seven and a half sweeps old.  You’re tired.

\--

Your name is Meenah Piexes, though most trolls call you Your Highness, water with your unique blood color, or Your Imperious Condescension. Or The Condesce if they’re not talking to you.  You’re fin-ally getting back to your ship after way too fucking long dealing with dum-bass-es, and you have a pan-ache.  Next time you have to deal with alevin that dumb you’re gonna cull more than one beach.  Just the thought starts some more… cray-ative ideas.  

You can’t wait to cuttle your moray-eel.

\--

Your name is Rox- uh… Your name is Rahksy Lalonde- ... That’s close enough.  You’re finally back to a functional level after being papped into next week, and then having any ideas and thoughts about Dirrhk thrown to hell.  He’s lots of things, and older than he looks is one of them.  You believe him at least that far, even if you’re not sure you believe a lot of the things he’s told you.  He also says the drones are coming soon, that you’ll get a notice tomorrow, and that you’ll have time to set things up with your clade.

You haven’t had to tangle with a drone if you weren’t up to it since the system was put in place, but you’re brought up short by the news because Jaehne has.  Jake- Jaehke won’t have, probably, beyond his work in the caverns, but he will now.  And, Dirrhk.  You can’t protect him without taking him to quad, but Meenah’s already in the system in your diamond, Jaehne’s in your club, and you don’t want to contemplate having you or anyone else on the ship having to fill a bucket with Dirrhk.  Old in mind or not, he’s still not even quite eight sweeps.

You arrange for quarters for him, and requisition some clothes and contacts.  Even if he’s not actually an adult, he’ll look like one.  You put your pin on his shoulder, and pat it a little bit.  It’s not on the shoulder you wish it was, but you’re not stupid enough to put it on his other shoulder.  Someone would notice immediately and you don’t want to think what the fallout would be.  You can pretend hearts, with your quadrant so recently vacated, even if it won’t be comfortable.  Dirrhk doesn’t protest where you put the pin, so you’re sure that he understands.  You manage to get everything arranged before Meenah gets back, so Dirrhk is safely tucked in his own quarters doing some training or other on the ‘net so that he can start a job on the ship.  Or something like that; you got him a husktop.  When you walk out of his quarters he is looks surprisingly older and you don’t worry about people finding out his real age.  You changed it in the system before you requisitioned anything, and coming from you it doesn’t matter what you ask for.  They’ll have it for you no questions asked within hours, or the next evening at the latest.  Your pin will keep him out of trouble, and he says even if there is trouble he can get out without much ruckus.  After this evening and his flashstepping, you’re inclined to believe him.

You wonder if Meenah will question why you’re so happy, but you doubt she will.  She doesn’t pay any attention to your other quadrants, which is the only reason you’ll probably get away with this.

You’re waiting for her when her shuttle docks, and she grins when she sees you, pulling you into a hug.  It’s a much better reunion than the last one.  The guards all around are all watching as surreptitiously as they can, they’re not used to seeing you around yet.  You pretend not to notice the new golden ring on one of her earfins, even if a little bit of guilt starts nibbling at the edges of your heart.  You walk with her quietly back to her quarters.  She walks smoothly, gliding across the deck with an ease that only you know for sure is practiced.  You learned at the same time as she did, just one of the many things she learned to help re-enforce her royal image.  You never did use it as much as her, and next to her your steps are that little bit less graceful.  If you were a more cynical person maybe you’d say that she made you look clumsy, but it was more that you next to her made her look more reginal.  You don’t have to concentrate so hard on your walk as you did when she first fetched you from the Searcherprise, but it never did suit you so well as it does her.

You strip in silence, but you can see the lines of tension in her jaw even as she’s trying to relax.  You’re already relaxed, and you pull her into a hug as the water filters into the waterlock.  She relaxes into your embrace, and once the door opens into her quarters, you lead her to her pile of bling.  It’s all gold, encrusted with coral and jewels in colors that near match her blood color, or yours.  Some of it is probably yours but you don’t wear it much.  You pull her close, tangling your legs in hers and putting one hand on her shoulder while the other’s on her brow.  You can tell she wants to talk, but she’s not ready yet.  The way her mouth is set, the way she’s slightly hunched, you can tell that she’ll talk to you once she’s relaxed enough.  You feel a rush of fondness for her familiar stubbornness, and in a moment of gentle impulse you kiss her on both eyelids.  

She makes a noise of surprise, hardly half a glub, but you feel it vibrating through your hand before you kiss her on the forehead.  When you pull back you can see in the slack open vulnerability of her face that she hadn’t expected that, and you feel another surge of pity.  She hasn’t been this open with you in a long time, maybe because you’re the one that’s more broken more often, or maybe because you were struggling too hard with your own problems to see her clearly. Now that you feel all your hurts are mostly quiet, you want to help hers.  She’s got so many, and normally you’d feel intimidated and overwhelmed.  Now all you feel is your heart too big in your chest, a good ache that you feel when you can actually change something hard.

She glubs a real glub this time, and lets out a little stream of bubbles that you read as frustration.  Not with you, though.

She starts telling you the story of exactly how bad her trip went, how the incompetence that downed the ship was more than one troll’s arrogant mistakes, and how much she had to stop herself from culling them.  Meenah even did stab one, the troll who designed the ship.  Not only had she failed to double-check her design,  but she’d overridden the designitect safety redundancies with a code meant only for theoretical design, all because she didn’t like how the ship looked.  She might die, she might not, Meenah didn’t care.  Privately, you didn’t either.  That sort of troll might have made much worse design mistakes later, and as it was someone was going to have to go over everything she’d made  to make sure that there weren’t more problems waiting to happen.

You grab one of her furiously gesticulating hands deftly, without being caught on any of her bracelets, and make eye contact before slowly bringing it to your lips and kissing one of her knuckles just below a studded ring.  You see how all the fight drains out of her, and you move on to the next knuckle, and the next.  Once you’re done with them you smooth her hand out gently and stroke it a few times so that it lays flat and slack, before kissing each fingertip on the pad.

She lets you move to the other hand, giving it the same treatment while being careful of the studs and spikes on her jewelry.  She’s watching you with some confusion now, but you can see a small spark of hope.  That hurts, because you can see the hope for what it is.  It’s hope for something you probably can’t give her, but you’ll do your best to try.  You think that if you have someone helping you, maybe you can help her by being the moirail that she needs.  Maybe you can help her make some changes for the better.

You talk her through what happened, and point out some things she could have done differently, but she laughs when you admit that you might have stabbed that troll too if you had been the one to talk to her.

It even works, for a while, but there are some battles that find even the closest trolls on opposite sides.  You don’t know that yet, but when you do it’ll have you wondering if there’s anything you could have done better.

\--

Your name is Jaehne Croker and you’re getting a headache.  This is a terrible sign, because when you get a headache at first news of something, it turns out horribly.  You got a headache when you first heard news of stirrings of unrest in the hatchcaves, a few centuries ago, and nearly a generation of culltakers were executed for that poorly-managed fiasco.  You also got a headache the first time you met Shalta, though you hardly could have guessed how wrong everything would go with her, so you don’t fault anyone for that mess.  Not even Rahksy.

This isn’t the first time there’s been unrest on Alternia since Meenah took the throne, but something about the tone of the whispers reaching you unsettles you, and the scope of them.  All of the rumors are related to a single troll who wears no sign to show his blood color.  If that wasn’t strange enough, the rumors are coming suddenly, and from many different places on Alternia itself from hues as high as blue, to as low as rust.  You decide to trust your instincts on this one.

You send an urgent message to your puppet-seatroll who’s ‘in charge’ of the Propagandstorians, and tell her to keep a close eye on what’s going on.  Hopefully you can head this off before it turns into the culling caverns all over again.  Thankfully, you think you’ve caught it in time.   **  
**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So about a month delay. I've had this chapter written the whole time, but I was putting off posting it. Maybe it's more than a month delay at this point, I can't even remember. Either way, yes I'm still here, and yes I'm still posting. This will be the last chapter on this story for a hot minute though, as I'm going to be posting a concurrent fic called Maybe If I Fall Asleep which is Alpha Rose/Dolorosa, and also Alpha Rose/Alpha Dave.   
> MIIFA is estimated to have about 20 chapters long, at an (estimated) 3-6k each chapter. The first chapter for that story is already complete and should be posted soon.
> 
> As always, check out my tumblr addynotladdy if you like my works.


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